Some of the most difficult tasks to manage are those which need to be done within a certain period but not at a specific time. Examples of this are follow-up calls to check on customer satisfaction or sales calls to prospects who need to be contacted towards the end of a contract period. Though such activities may not be postponed indefinitely, they definitely have a lower priority than appointments and opportunity related tasks. This is the difference between the request of a customer to “call me at 10 am on Monday” or to “call my after my holiday sometime in August”. There are of course activities such as cold calls which need to be made but are often not tied to a time frame at all.
Using Groupware is not a satisfactory solution, since the usually large number of such activities makes it difficult to focus on priority tasks. Even if the CRM system involved includes task management, this challenge remains. My recommendation is to separate the two types of activities. Fixed date activities appear clearly in calendars and to-do lists, while floating tasks are listed by date separately. Interestingly, one of the smaller CRM solutions, cobra CRM PLUS, does this considerably better than some of the major applications.
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Tags: Activities, CRM Software, Groupware
Most users of CRM system use Microsoft Outlook or some other groupware in combination with a smart phone of Blackberry to plan their activities. While some of these activities are directly CRM-relevant, not all are. My wife’s birthday is important to me, but probably not for my colleagues and customers.
Yes, most CRM applications do have good integration with groupware, but this does not entirely solve the problem, because users do not want to clutter their hand-held devices and calendars with activities which are only relevant when in the office. In all the projects I have been involved in, this has been the first issue to be faced when the application goes live. i am not even going to attempt to suggest a solution. However, good solutions will always offer users a number of ways to organize their work, so individuals can work in the way that suits them best.
Tags: Activities, Groupware
In the planning stage of most CRM Projects activity management does not play a central role. After roll out it suddenly becomes a major issue. Why? There are a number of reasons. From the personal point of view, not all activities originate from the CRM system, so how can conflicts be avoided? What happens when the CRM priorities clash with personal priorities?
These are the issues:
- Groupware vs. CRM
- Tasks with no specific completion dates
- Workflow management
- Daily work planning
- Cold calls and campaigns
These will be the topics of the following posts. Watch this site!
Tags: Activity Management
This is probably a fringe area of CRM. Many companies invite customers and partners to contribute comments and ideas for product innovation or improvement. I would see this as part of a CRM strategy though it appears that few companies link their open innovation sites to a CRM application. It is difficult to say if companies really use the information gained from customers, but take a look at some examples:
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Tags: Open Innovation
Take a look at this example.
[…] for several years, Xerox has polled 480,000 customers per year regarding product and service satisfaction using a five-point scale from 5 (high) to 1 (low). Until two years ago, Xerox’s goal was to achieve 100% 4s (satisfied) and 5s (very satisfied) by the end of 1993. But in 1991, an analysis of customers who gave Xerox 4s and 5s on satisfaction found that the relationship between the scores and actual loyalty differed greatly depending on whether the customers were very satisfied or satisfied. Customers giving Xerox 5s were six times more likely to repurchase Xerox equipment than those giving 4s.
This analysis led Xerox to extend its efforts to create apostles – a term coined by Scott D. Cook, CEO of software producer and distributor Intuit, describing customers so satisfied that they convert the uninitiated to a product or service.
Found in Putting the service-profit chain to work by JL Heskett, LA Schlesinger, Harvard Business Review, 1994,
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Tags: crm, Customer satisfaction
This is the controller’s point of view. Don’t go this way. Making this the aim of a CRM project will guarantee the failure of the project. Concentrating on cost cutting will result in a reduction of customer service in some way , which will in turn lead to a decrease of turnover. The aim must be the improvement of customer service. This will lead to an increase in sales and a reduction of sales costs in relation to sales. Watch for tomorrows post!
Does increased customer satisfaction lead to higher sales?
Tags: cost of sales
CRM Auswahl